As the tyrant approaches death, the gap between the grotesque historical figure and the appealing actor who plays him becomes a problem. I don't necessarily miss Henry's swollen physique, but Meyers should have found some other way to register the effects of the king's vast appetites, as he should be grandly repugnant in his old age. With a limp and a hoarse whisper, Meyers has simplyAs the tyrant approaches death, the gap between the grotesque historical figure and the appealing actor who plays him becomes a problem. I don't necessarily miss Henry's swollen physique, but Meyers should have found some other way to register the effects of the king's vast appetites, as he should be grandly repugnant in his old age. With a limp and a hoarse whisper, Meyers has simply made him feeble, leaving repugnance to the makeup crew in charge of Henry's ulcerous leg. Fortunately, several supporting cast members step up to fill the void at the center. Cavill does his best work in the series as the guilt-ridden duke surprised by love in the depth of horror. His astonished gratitude for such a gift so late in life, after so much evil done in service of his king, is genuinely moving, and, in some ways, underscores the evil more than the hand-wringing of earlier seasons. O'Hara shines as Surrey, the warrior-poet obsessed with his ancient name and his own glory. Swaggering around the court swollen with arrogant contempt for the "new men" Henry has elevated to the peerage, he seems to have picked up the energy Meyers discarded, making his inevitable execution a palpable loss for the series. As for the queens, Merchant is perfect as Katherine Howard. Young and foolish without being stupid, she regards Henry's infatuation as the just reward of a very pretty girl and an endless, delightful game in which she gets to make all the rules. More naive than arrogant, she fails even to see the other games at play in the court, much less avoid them, giving her fall unusual pathos. At the end Merchant's Katherine proves profoundly human, and her execution stayed with me like no other. Both the princesses make me wish the show would continue into the reigns of Edward and Mary. Watching the long-suffering Bolger begin to manifest the intolerant vitriol that would eventually produce "Bloody Mary," I feel the waste of a promising actress abandoning a great role. Moreover, all the principal players in the opening struggles of Edward's reign are in place and ready to rumble; it seems a shame to cut them all loose, even with the Borgias on the horizon.…Expand

At times, the opening night of season four gets almost that silly, though at other times it returns to its strongest suit, which is illustrating 1) the coexistence of powerful, conflicting forces inside the same person, and 2) the idea that absolute power corrupts.